Active control system

ABSTRACT

An active control system for a mass traveling along a guideway and method for active control of a mass traveling along a guideway. The active control system includes at least one displacement sensor and at least one motion sensor. Signals from the at least one displacement sensor and the least one motion sensor are processed to adjust a displacement of a reference location on the mass from a fixed reference.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/527,567 filed Jun. 30, 2017, the disclosure of which is expresslyincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE 1. Field of the Disclosure

The present disclosure relates to a control system, namely a controlsystem that minimizes vibration and power consumption.

2. Background of the Disclosure

An active suspension is a type of vehicle suspension that controls thevertical movement of the bearings relative to the chassis with anonboard system. Generally, these systems have at least one of twoconstraints: (1) the bearings are used both for propulsion and support;and/or (2) the bearings are not operating in a system that stays inregulation, e.g., maintains some constant reference relative to a globalsystem. Thus, there is a need for an improved active control system fora vehicle suspension.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE DISCLOSURE

The novel features which are characteristic of the disclosure, both asto structure and method of operation thereof, together with further aimsand advantages thereof, will be understood from the followingdescription, considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, inwhich the embodiment of the disclosure are illustrated by way ofexample. It is to be expressly understood, however, that the drawingsare for the purpose of illustration and description only, and they arenot intended as a definition of the limits of the disclosure.

By implementing aspects of the disclosure, and considering the removalof the constraints of (1) the bearings being used both for propulsionand support; and/or (2) the bearings not operating in a system thatstays in regulation, new and universally applicable control systems canbe created.

Embodiments of the present disclosure consider a novel system forproviding an active control system for a moving body. The active controlsystem includes at least one displacement sensor with a low-pass filterand at least one motion sensor, e.g., an accelerometer, gyroscope, ratesensor, etc., with a high-pass filter. A controller uses an actuator tomaintain the position of the system in relation to a global spline whilealso driving the acceleration component to zero. Thus, power dissipationis reduced to the static dissipation and the remnants of thelow-frequency components of the displacement sensor that are below thethreshold of the high-pass filter. Thus, in accordance with aspects ofthe disclosure, the active control system robustly rejects forcedisturbances and does not track local track deviations. Thereby, powerrequirements are minimized without compromising on force disturbancerejection requirements.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to an active control systemand method of motion control for a track-based maglev. These embodimentsare advantages in that they provide an ability to minimize accelerationsfelt by the passenger while simultaneously allowing very loose/roughtrack tolerances. It does this by implementing a type of sensor fusiontechnique with multiple sensors and particular filter types.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of this disclosure will be best understood byreference to the following detailed description of a preferredembodiment of the disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment in which embodiments of thepresent invention are practiced

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary embodiment of a control system in accordancewith aspects of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another exemplary embodiment of a control system inaccordance with aspects of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a flow diagram of an exemplary process for active control;and

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary environment for practicing aspects of thepresent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE DISCLOSURE

Embodiments of the present disclosure may be used in a transportationsystem, for example, as described in commonly-assigned application Ser.No. 15/007,783, titled “Transportation System,” the contents of whichare hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

In the following description, the various embodiments of the presentdisclosure will be described with respect to the enclosed drawings. Asrequired, detailed embodiments of the embodiments of the presentdisclosure are discussed herein; however, it is to be understood thatthe disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the embodiments of thedisclosure that may be embodied in various and alternative forms. Thefigures are not necessarily to scale and some features may beexaggerated or minimized to show details of particular components.Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed hereinare not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a representativebasis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ thepresent disclosure.

The particulars shown herein are by way of example and for purposes ofillustrative discussion of the embodiments of the present disclosureonly and are presented in the cause of providing what is believed to bethe most useful and readily understood description of the principles andconceptual aspects of the present disclosure. In this regard, no attemptis made to show structural details of the present disclosure in moredetail than is necessary for the fundamental understanding of thepresent disclosure, such that the description, taken with the drawings,making apparent to those skilled in the art how the forms of the presentdisclosure may be embodied in practice.

As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include theplural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Forexample, reference to “a magnetic material” would also mean thatmixtures of one or more magnetic materials can be present unlessspecifically excluded. As used herein, the indefinite article “a”indicates one as well as more than one and does not necessarily limitits referent noun to the singular.

Except where otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing quantities usedin the specification and claims are to be understood as being modifiedin all examples by the term “about.” Accordingly, unless indicated tothe contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the specificationand claims are approximations that may vary depending upon the desiredproperties sought to be obtained by embodiments of the presentdisclosure. At the very least, and not to be considered as an attempt tolimit the application of the doctrine of equivalents to the scope of theclaims, each numerical parameter should be construed in light of thenumber of significant digits and ordinary rounding conventions.

Additionally, the recitation of numerical ranges within thisspecification is considered to be a disclosure of all numerical valuesand ranges within that range (unless otherwise explicitly indicated).For example, if a range is from about 1 to about 50, it is deemed toinclude, for example, 1, 7, 34, 46.1, 23.7, or any other value or rangewithin the range.

As used herein, the terms “about” and “approximately” indicate that theamount or value in question may be the specific value designated or someother value in its neighborhood. Generally, the terms “about” and“approximately” denoting a certain value is intended to denote a rangewithin ±5% of the value. As one example, the phrase “about 100” denotesa range of 100 ±5, i.e. the range from 95 to 105. Generally, when theterms “about” and “approximately” are used, it can be expected thatsimilar results or effects according to the disclosure can be obtainedwithin a range of ±5% of the indicated value.

As used herein, the term “and/or” indicates that either all or only oneof the elements of said group may be present. For example, “A and/or B”shall mean “only A, or only B, or both A and B”. In the case of “onlyA”, the term also covers the possibility that B is absent, i.e. “only A,but not B”.

The term “substantially parallel” refers to deviating less than 20° fromparallel alignment and the term “substantially perpendicular” refers todeviating less than 20° from perpendicular alignment. The term“parallel” refers to deviating less than 5° from mathematically exactparallel alignment. Similarly “perpendicular” refers to deviating lessthan 5° from mathematically exact perpendicular alignment.

The term “at least partially” is intended to denote that the followingproperty is fulfilled to a certain extent or completely.

The terms “substantially” and “essentially” are used to denote that thefollowing feature, property or parameter is either completely (entirely)realized or satisfied or to a major degree that does not adverselyaffect the intended result.

The term “comprising” as used herein is intended to be non-exclusive andopen-ended. Thus, for example a composition comprising a compound A mayinclude other compounds besides A. However, the term “comprising” alsocovers the more restrictive meanings of “consisting essentially of” and“consisting of”, so that for example “a composition comprising acompound A” may also (essentially) consist of the compound A.

The various embodiments disclosed herein can be used separately and invarious combinations unless specifically stated to the contrary.

In an exemplary embodiment, an active control system includes acontroller that is operable to sense a mass, which can be a sprung or anunsprung mass, and drive its high-frequency acceleration components tozero while following low-frequency local displacement or gap conditions.The mass can be suspended from an overhead guideway or supported on aground based guideway. In embodiments, the active control systemincludes at least one displacement sensor, at least one motion sensor,at least one high-pass filter, at least one low-pass filter, at leastone controller, and at least one actuator. The motion sensor may use aplurality of sensors, such as an accelerometer and a gyroscope, forexample, to detect any number of inertial measurement units, such asbody accelerations and/or velocities, for example, in both translationand rotation axes. The motion sensor may detect changes in the verticaland/or lateral speed of motion of the active control system, e.g., whenthe control system accelerates and decelerates in the plane that issubstantially orthogonal to the plane created by the ground.

In embodiments, the displacement sensor can include any displacementsensors known to a person of skill in the art. The displacement sensormay be configured to measure a displacement between a reference surfaceon a moving body and a reference surface on a guideway side. The outputfrom the motion sensor is processed through a high-pass filter to removegravitational components of any acceleration signals and any DC offsets.Thus, in accordance with aspects of the disclosure, the filtered outputcan be integrated, at least once, and is without drift due tonumerical/integration effects. The output from the displacement sensoris processed through a low-pass filter, which decreases or attenuateseffects of high spatial frequency guideway components while retainingthe average displacement, or long spatial frequency components. Thefiltered signal from the motion sensor, which is integrated, at leastonce, to recover a signal with units of displacement and the filteredsignal from the displacement sensor are superimposed to create asynthesized pseudo-displacement signal. The pseudo-displacement signalcan be subtracted from a reference displacement signal to produce apseudo-error signal which can be fed to a controller. The output of thecontroller can then be fed to an actuator to compensate thepseudo-error, such as by the controller then instructing the actuator tomove the reference surface on the moving body to maintain a desireddisplacement from the reference surface on the guideway side.

In embodiments, a gap sensor may used in place of a displacement sensor.The gap sensor can include any gap sensors known to a person of skill inthe art. The gap sensor may be configured to measure a gap distancebetween a reference surface on the moving body and a reference surfaceon the guideway side. The output from the motion sensor is processedthrough a high-pass filter to remove the gravitational components of anyacceleration signals and any DC offsets. In accordance with aspects ofthe disclosure, the filtered output can be integrated, at least once,and without displacement due to drift on the output signal. The outputfrom the gap sensor is processed through a low-pass filter, whichdecreases or attenuates effects of high spatial frequency guidewaycomponents while retaining the average displacement, or long spatialfrequency components. The filtered signal from the motion sensor, whichis integrated, at least once, to recover a signal with units of gapdistance and the filtered signal from the displacement sensor aresuperimposed to create a synthesized pseudo-displacement signal. Thepseudo-displacement signal can be subtracted from a referencedisplacement signal to produce a pseudo-error signal which can be fed toa controller. The output of the controller can then be fed to anactuator to compensate the pseudo-error, such as by the controller theninstructing the actuator to move the reference surface on the movingbody to maintain a desired constant gap between the reference surface onthe moving body and the reference surface on the guideway side.

An embodiment considers the active control system may be for a vehicle.The active control system may be substantially decoupled from thevehicle via a suspension. The suspension may be any of those known, suchas springs, dampers, and/or electromagnetic suspension systems. Theactuator may substantially connect the suspension to bearings.

In an embodiment, the bearings may include wheels. The controller mayinstruct an actuator to vary displacement between the wheel and the massto reduce the pseudo-error, such as through varying the verticaldistance between the suspension and the wheel and/or through varying theangle of the wheel's connection to the suspension.

Embodiments of the present disclosure combine the active control systemwith an electromagnetic suspension system may include an electromagnetthat acts as the actuator. In some embodiments, the electromagnet may bebalanced with the force of gravity on the vehicle. In an embodiment, theelectromagnet is bidirectional and self-balancing. The vehicle may besuspended or levitate while it is in motion. If the active controlsystem senses that the displacement or distance has increased past apreselected maximum displacement or distance tolerance, then the activecontrol system may adjust the direction and strength of the currentthrough the coil to increase the attractive force between theelectromagnet and guideway, returning the vehicle to within thepreselected displacement or distance tolerance. Likewise, if the activecontrol system senses that the distance between the vehicle and theguideway has decreased past a preselected minimum displacement ordistance tolerance, then the active control system may adjust thedirection and strength of the current through the coil to decrease theattractive force (or create a force in the opposite direction) betweenthe vehicle and guideway, returning the vehicle to within thepreselected displacement or distance tolerance.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment in which the active control systemcan be utilized. A moving body 1, e.g., a vehicle, pod, force generationengine, etc., can be arranged to travel over a guideway 2, e.g., atrack, via bearings 3, wheels, electromagnets, etc. In an alternateembodiments, moving body 1 can be arranged to travel suspended from aguideway 2′ via bearings 3′. Bearings 3, with respect to guideway 2, canbe oriented vertically, horizontally or to any angle in between. Asmoving body 1 travels along guideway 2, 2′, a displacement D, D′ mayoccur between, e.g., a reference surface on moving body 1 and areference surface on guideway 2, 2′. According to embodiments, theactive control system can adjust a sensed displacement to a referencedisplacement, e.g., by adjusting a current direction and strengththrough a coil of the electromagnetic bearing.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary embodiment of a control system 10 inaccordance with aspects of the disclosure. As shown in FIG. 2, thecontrol system 10 for an active electromagnetic suspension includes atleast one displacement sensor 11, at least one motion sensor 12, atleast one high-pass filter 13, and at least one low-pass filter 14. Thecontrol system 10 also includes at least one controller 15 and at leastone actuator 16. The displacement sensor 11 may be configured to measurethe displacement between the reference surface on a moving body, e.g., aforce generation engine, and a reference surface on the guideway side.The output from the motion sensor 12 is processed through the at leastone high-pass filter 13 to remove the gravitational components of anyacceleration, velocity, rate signals and any DC offsets. According toaspects of the disclosure, the filtered output can be integrated atleast once and is without displacement due to drift on the outputsignal. The output from the displacement sensor 11 is processed througha low-pass filter 14, which decreases attenuated effects of high spatialfrequency guideway components while retaining the average displacement,or long spatial frequency components. The high pass filtered signal fromthe motion sensor 12 is integrated at least once in at least oneintegrator 17 to produce a signal with units of displacement and the lowpass filtered signal from the displacement sensor 11 are superimposed ina mixer 18 to create a synthesized pseudo-displacement signal. Inparticular, when the motion sensor senses velocity, the signal isintegrated once to produce a displacement signal, and when the motionsensor senses acceleration, the signal is integrated twice in order toproduce a displacement signal. In embodiments, it is contemplated thatthe filtered signal can alternatively be supplied to a derivativeoperator instead of an integrator.

The pseudo-displacement signal can be subtracted from a referencedisplacement signal Zref in a subtraction unit 19 to produce apseudo-error signal which can be fed to the controller 15. The output ofthe controller 15 can then be fed to the actuator 16 to compensate thepseudo-error by interacting with the plant 20 under control, such as bythe controller 15 then instructing the actuator 16 to move or displacethe mass in time so that the reference surface on the moving bodyrelative to the reference surface on the guideway side to maintain adesired displacement distance or position. The input into plant 20 canbe an electrical signal, such as a voltage or current, or a mechanicalsignal such as a force, a velocity, or a displacement.

The low-pass filter on displacement and high pass filter on accelerationis an example of shaping the frequency content of interest and reducingthe signal, e.g. at least one operation of integrating or taking thederivative with respect to time or space, to identical units to use forsuperposition. The relevant frequency content of any signal can befurther extracted using a multiplicity of filter types, including butnot limited to band-pass, band-stop, notch, resonator, etc. Inembodiments, it is preferable that there are no gaps in the frequencyspectrum between the low end frequency of high pass filter 13 and thehigh end of low pass filter 14, e.g., low pass filter 14 is <1 Hz andhigh pass filter 13 is >1 Hz. Further, embodiments contemplateconfiguring low pass filter 14 as a band stop filter that comprises alow pass filter, a high pass filter and a notch filter. Furtherembodiments contemplate configuring high pass filter 13 as a band passfilter or a resonator. It is also understood that a second high passfilter can be arranged to filter the displacement signal output from theintegrator.

Another embodiment of the active control system is depicted in FIG. 3,where the actuator is more particularly shown.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary flow diagram of a process for operating theactive control system. The depicted flow diagram is merely illustrativeand is not to be construed as limiting embodiments of the invention. Theprocess begins at S300 and separately monitors the displacement of (orgap between) a reference surface of the moving body from a fixedreference, e.g., a reference surface of the guideway, at 301, and themotion of the moving body along the guideway, at 302. The senseddisplacement is filtered in a low pass filter at 303 to produce afiltered displacement signal. The sensed motion is filtered in a highpass filter at 304 and then integrated at least once at 305 to produce adisplacement signal from the motion. If the sensed motion is anacceleration, the signal is integrated twice at 305 and if the sensedmotion is a velocity, the signal is integrated once at 305.

At 306, the filtered displacement signal and the displacement signalfrom the motion are superimposed on each other to produce thesynthesized pseudo-displacement signal, and the superimposed signals aresubtracted from a predetermined displacement reference to produce apseudo-error signal at 307. The pseudo-error signal is amplified at 308and fed to the actuator at 309 to move or displace the moving body intime so that the reference surface on the moving body relative to thereference surface on the guideway side to maintain the predetermineddisplacement distance or position.

System Environment

Aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure (e.g., control systemsfor the active electromagnetic suspension and methods for active controlof such electromagnetic suspensions or of vehicles) can be implementedby such special purpose hardware-based systems that perform thespecified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions and/or software, as described above. Themethod/control systems may be implemented and executed from either aserver, in a client server relationship, or they may run on a userworkstation with operative information conveyed to the user workstation.In an embodiment, the software elements include firmware, residentsoftware, microcode, etc.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentdisclosure may be embodied as a system, a method or a computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of embodiments of the present disclosuremay take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirelysoftware embodiment (including firmware, resident software, microcode,etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that mayall generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or“system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present disclosure (e.g., controlsystems) may take the form of a computer program product embodied in anytangible medium of expression having computer-usable program codeembodied in the medium.

Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readablemedium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readablemedium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic,optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus,device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustivelist) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: anelectrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computerdiskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory(ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flashmemory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory(CDROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as thosesupporting the Internet or an intranet, a magnetic storage device, a USBkey, and/or a mobile phone.

In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readablemedium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate,propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with theinstruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usablemedium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usableprogram code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of acarrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted usingany appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline,optical fiber cable, RF, etc.

Computer program code for carrying out operations of the presentdisclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programminglanguages, including an object oriented programming language such asJava, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programminglanguages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programminglanguages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer,partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partlyon the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely onthe remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remotecomputer may be connected to the user's computer through any type ofnetwork. This may include, for example, a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider). Additionally, in embodiments, the present invention may beembodied in a field programmable gate array (FPGA).

FIG. 5 is an exemplary system for use in accordance with the embodimentsdescribed herein. The system 3900 is generally shown and may include acomputer system 3902, which is generally indicated. The computer system3902 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected to othersystems or peripheral devices. For example, the computer system 3902 mayinclude, or be included within, any one or more computers, servers,systems, communication networks or cloud environment.

The computer system 3902 may operate in the capacity of a server in anetwork environment, or in the capacity of a client user computer in thenetwork environment. The computer system 3902, or portions thereof, maybe implemented as, or incorporated into, various devices, such as apersonal computer, a tablet computer, a set-top box, a personal digitalassistant, a mobile device, a palmtop computer, a laptop computer, adesktop computer, a communications device, a wireless telephone, apersonal trusted device, a web appliance, or any other machine capableof executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) thatspecify actions to be taken by that device. Further, while a singlecomputer system 3902 is illustrated, additional embodiments may includeany collection of systems or sub-systems that individually or jointlyexecute instructions or perform functions.

As illustrated in FIG. 5, the computer system 3902 may include at leastone processor 3904, such as, for example, a central processing unit, agraphics processing unit, or both. The computer system 3902 may alsoinclude a computer memory 3906. The computer memory 3906 may include astatic memory, a dynamic memory, or both. The computer memory 3906 mayadditionally or alternatively include a hard disk, random access memory,a cache, or any combination thereof. Of course, those skilled in the artappreciate that the computer memory 3906 may comprise any combination ofknown memories or a single storage.

As shown in FIG. 5, the computer system 3902 may include a computerdisplay 3908, such as a liquid crystal display, an organic lightemitting diode, a flat panel display, a solid state display, a cathoderay tube, a plasma display, or any other known display. The computersystem 3902 may include at least one computer input device 3910, such asa keyboard, a remote control device having a wireless keypad, amicrophone coupled to a speech recognition engine, a camera such as avideo camera or still camera, a cursor control device, or anycombination thereof. Those skilled in the art appreciate that variousembodiments of the computer system 3902 may include multiple inputdevices 3910. Moreover, those skilled in the art further appreciate thatthe above-listed, exemplary input devices 3910 are not meant to beexhaustive and that the computer system 3902 may include any additional,or alternative, input devices 3910.

The computer system 3902 may also include a medium reader 3912 and anetwork interface 3914. Furthermore, the computer system 3902 mayinclude any additional devices, components, parts, peripherals,hardware, software or any combination thereof which are commonly knownand understood as being included with or within a computer system, suchas, but not limited to, an output device 3916. The output device 3916may be, but is not limited to, a speaker, an audio out, a video out, aremote control output, or any combination thereof. As shown in FIG. 5,the computer system 3902 may include communication and/or powerconnections to the active electromagnetic suspension, an actuator, andan actuator controller, in accordance with aspects of the disclosure.

Furthermore, the aspects of the disclosure may take the form of acomputer program product accessible from a computer-usable orcomputer-readable medium providing program code for use by or inconnection with a computer or any instruction execution system. Thesoftware and/or computer program product can be implemented in theenvironment of FIG. 5. For the purposes of this description, acomputer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus thatcan contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program foruse by or in connection with the instruction execution system,apparatus, or device. The medium can be an electronic, magnetic,optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (orapparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of acomputer-readable storage medium include a semiconductor or solid statememory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random accessmemory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and anoptical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compactdisk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disc-read/write (CD-R/W) andDVD.

Although the present specification describes components and functionsthat may be implemented in particular embodiments with reference toparticular standards and protocols, the disclosure is not limited tosuch standards and protocols. Such standards are periodically supersededby faster or more efficient equivalents having essentially the samefunctions. Accordingly, replacement standards and protocols having thesame or similar functions are considered equivalents thereof.

The illustrations of the embodiments described herein are intended toprovide a general understanding of the various embodiments. Theillustrations are not intended to serve as a complete description of allof the elements and features of apparatus and systems that utilize thestructures or methods described herein. Many other embodiments may beapparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the disclosure.Other embodiments may be utilized and derived from the disclosure, suchthat structural and logical substitutions and changes may be madewithout departing from the scope of the disclosure. Additionally, theillustrations are merely representational and may not be drawn to scale.Certain proportions within the illustrations may be exaggerated, whileother proportions may be minimized. Accordingly, the disclosure and thefigures are to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive.

Accordingly, the present disclosure provides various systems,structures, methods, and apparatuses. Although the disclosure has beendescribed with reference to several exemplary embodiments, it isunderstood that the words that have been used are words of descriptionand illustration, rather than words of limitation. Changes may be madewithin the purview of the appended claims, as presently stated and asamended, without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosurein its aspects. Although the disclosure has been described withreference to particular materials and embodiments, embodiments of theinvention are not intended to be limited to the particulars disclosed;rather the invention extends to all functionally equivalent structures,methods, and uses such as are within the scope of the appended claims.

While the computer-readable medium may be described as a single medium,the term “computer-readable medium” includes a single medium or multiplemedia, such as a centralized or distributed database, and/or associatedcaches and servers that store one or more sets of instructions. The term“computer-readable medium” shall also include any medium that is capableof storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution bya processor or that cause a computer system to perform any one or moreof the embodiments disclosed herein.

The computer-readable medium may comprise a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or media and/or comprise a transitorycomputer-readable medium or media. In a particular non-limiting,exemplary embodiment, the computer-readable medium can include asolid-state memory such as a memory card or other package that housesone or more non-volatile read-only memories. Further, thecomputer-readable medium can be a random access memory or other volatilere-writable memory. Additionally, the computer-readable medium caninclude a magneto-optical or optical medium, such as a disk, tapes orother storage device to capture carrier wave signals such as a signalcommunicated over a transmission medium. Accordingly, the disclosure isconsidered to include any computer-readable medium or other equivalentsand successor media, in which data or instructions may be stored.

While the specification describes particular embodiments of the presentdisclosure, those of ordinary skill can devise variations of the presentdisclosure without departing from the inventive concept.

One or more embodiments of the disclosure may be referred to herein,individually and/or collectively, by the term “invention” merely forconvenience and without intending to voluntarily limit the scope of thisapplication to any particular invention or inventive concept. Moreover,although specific embodiments have been illustrated and describedherein, it should be appreciated that any subsequent arrangementdesigned to achieve the same or similar purpose may be substituted forthe specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover anyand all subsequent adaptations or variations of various embodiments.Combinations of the above embodiments, and other embodiments notspecifically described herein, will be apparent to those of skill in theart upon reviewing the description.

The above disclosed subject matter is to be considered illustrative, andnot restrictive, and the appended claims are intended to cover all suchmodifications, enhancements, and other embodiments which fall within thetrue spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Thus, to the maximumextent allowed by law, the scope of the present disclosure is to bedetermined by the broadest permissible interpretation of the followingclaims and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted or limited bythe foregoing detailed description.

Accordingly, the novel architecture is intended to embrace all suchalterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spiritand scope of the appended claims. Furthermore, to the extent that theterm “includes” is used in either the detailed description or theclaims, such term is intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to theterm “comprising” as “comprising” is interpreted when employed as atransitional word in a claim.

While the disclosure has been described with reference to specificembodiments, those skilled in the art will understand that variouschanges may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elementsthereof without departing from the true spirit and scope of thedisclosure. While exemplary embodiments are described above, it is notintended that these embodiments describe all possible forms of theembodiments of the disclosure. Rather, the words used in thespecification are words of description rather than limitation, and it isunderstood that various changes may be made without departing from thespirit and scope of the disclosure. In addition, modifications may bemade without departing from the essential teachings of the disclosure.Furthermore, the features of various implementing embodiments may becombined to form further embodiments of the disclosure.

While the specification describes particular embodiments of the presentdisclosure, those of ordinary skill can devise variations of the presentdisclosure without departing from the inventive concept.

Insofar as the description above and the accompanying drawing discloseany additional subject matter that is not within the scope of the claimsbelow, the embodiments are not dedicated to the public and the right tofile one or more applications to claim such additional embodiments isreserved.

What is claimed is:
 1. An active control system for a mass travelingalong a guideway, comprising: at least one displacement sensor measuringa displacement between a mass reference surface on the mass and aguideway reference surface on a guideway side; at least one motionsensor; at least one first filter comprising at least one of: a low passfilter, a notch filter, or a combination of a low and high pass filter;at least one second filter comprising at least one of: a high passfilter, a resonator or a bandpass filter; and a mixer, wherein the atleast one first filter is coupled to the at least one displacementsensor in a first branch to process signals from the at least onedisplacement sensor, and the at least one second filter is coupled tothe at least one motion sensor in a second branch, which is in parallelto the first branch, to process signals from the at least one motionsensor, and wherein signals from the first branch and signals from thesecond branch are processed and then mixed in the mixer to adjust adisplacement of the mass reference surface from the guideway referencesurface.
 2. The active control system according to claim 1, wherein acombined frequency spectrum of the at least one low pass filter and theat least one high pass filter is continuous.
 3. The active controlsystem according to claim 1, wherein the first filter comprises a notchfilter and the second filter comprises at least one bandpass filter. 4.The active control system according to claim 1, wherein the first filtercomprises a high pass filter and a low pass filter.
 5. The activecontrol system according to claim 1, further comprising: at least oneintegrator or derivative operator coupled to receive the filteredsignals from the at least one motion sensor.
 6. An active control systemfor a mass traveling along a guideway, comprising: at least onedisplacement sensor measuring a displacement between a mass referencesurface on the mass and a guideway reference surface on a guideway side;at least one motion sensor; at least one first filter; and at least onesecond filter, wherein the at least one displacement sensor is coupledto the at least one first filter and the at least one motion sensor iscoupled to the at least one second filter, wherein signals from the atleast one displacement sensor are processed in the at least one firstfilter to form first filtered displacement sensor signals and signalsfrom the least one motion sensor are processed in the at least onesecond filter to form second filtered motion sensor signals; anintegrator or a derivative operator is coupled to receive the secondfiltered motion sensor signals to produce integrated second filteredmotion signals or derivative operated second filtered motion signals; amixer to superimpose the first filtered displacement sensor signals withthe integrated second filtered motion signals or with the derivativeoperated second filtered motion signals to produce a synthesizedpseudo-displacement signal; and an actuator to adjust the displacementof the mass reference surface from the guideway reference surface basedon the synthesized pseudo-displacement signal.
 7. The active controlsystem according to claim 6, further comprising: a comparator todetermine a pseudo error signal, which is a difference between apredetermined reference displacement and the synthesizedpseudo-displacement signal.
 8. The active control system according toclaim 7, further comprising: a controller coupled to receive the pseudoerror signal and to control an actuator to adjust the displacement ofthe mass reference surface on the mass from the guideway referencesurface.
 9. The active control system according to claim 1, wherein theat least one displacement sensor comprises at least one of anaccelerometer, a gyroscope or rate sensor.
 10. The active control systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the mass comprises a vehicle havingbearings for moving along the guideway.
 11. The active control systemaccording to claim 10, wherein the vehicle comprises a pod, the guidewaycomprises a track, and wherein the pod is configured to be suspendedfrom or travel over the track.
 12. A method for active control of a masstraveling along a guideway, comprising: monitoring signals correspondingto a displacement of a mass reference surface on the mass with respectto a guideway reference surface on a guideway side; monitoring signalscorresponding to motion of the mass along the guideway; processing themonitored displacement signals in at least one of a low pass filter, anotch filter or a combination of a low and high pass filter; processingthe monitored motion signals in at least one of a high pass filter, aresonator or a bandpass filter; mixing the processed monitoreddisplacement signals and the processed monitored motion signals in amixer; and controlling an actuator to adjust the displacement of themass reference surface from the guideway reference surface according tothe processed monitored displacement signals and the processed monitoredmotion signals.
 13. The method according to claim 12, wherein theprocessing comprises: extracting relevant frequency content of themotion and displacement signals using filters comprising at least one ofa band-pass, band-stop, notch, or resonator.
 14. The method according toclaim 12, wherein the processing further comprises: integrating, atleast one time, the filtered signals from the at least one motionsensor.
 15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the processingfurther comprises: superimposing the filtered displacement signals andthe integrated filtered motion signals to produce a synthesizedpseudo-displacement signal.
 16. The method according to claim 15,wherein the processing further comprises: determining a differencebetween a predetermined reference displacement and the synthesizedpseudo-displacement signal as a pseudo error signal.
 17. The methodaccording to claim 16, wherein the controlling comprises: controlling anactuator to adjust the displacement of the mass reference surface fromthe guideway reference surface based on the pseudo error signal.
 18. Themethod according to claim 12, wherein the guideway comprises a track andthe mass comprises a vehicle with bearings configured for the vehicle tomove over the track or to be suspended from the track.
 19. The activecontrol system according to claim 1, further comprising an integrator ora derivative operator arranged in the second branch to process thesecond filtered motion sensor signals to produce integrated filteredmotion signals or derivative operated motion signals in the secondbranch.
 20. The active control system according to claim 19, wherein themixer is arranged to process the signals from the first branch andsignals from the second branch by superimposing signals output from thefirst branch with the signals output from the second branch.